Various rolling boards are commercially available nowadays for exercising various types of board sports. The best known rolling boards are those known as skateboards, other types of rolling boards including longboards, mountainboards, flowboards, freeboards, downhill boards, which have brakes, street luges, kickboards (essentially scooters), T-boards, road boards or windsurf boards, wherein the last-mentioned boards have a sail. These various rolling boards differ from one another for example in the length or thickness of the axles used or the diameter of the wheels used. Some kinds of rolling board have additional particular features, for example the abovementioned sail in the case of windsurf boards, a brake for braking at least one axle in the case of downhill boards, or a handlebar or steering rod in the case of kickboards.
In winter, use is made moreover of what are known as snowboards, which have no wheels.
A number of the abovementioned rolling board types are defined and explained in more detail in the following.
A longboard is a special skateboard which is longer than conventional skateboards (generally between 90 and 150 cm) and has a longer wheelbase. Generally, larger wheels made of usually softer material are attached to a longboard than are used in a conventional skateboard. By improving the ride stability, soft and larger wheels (which reduce rolling resistance by absorbing unevennesses more effectively) and the longer wheelbase allow higher speeds than with a standard skateboard.
Visually and technically, a mountainboard, or all-terrain board, is a mixture of a skateboard and a snowboard for traveling by rolling board off-road.
A flowboard is a form of skateboard which attempts to imitate the properties of a snowboard. In this case it is a matter of carving in particular. The flowboard consists of a skateboard-like board (also called a “deck”), to the front and rear of which metal arcs having about seven wheels each are fastened.
A freeboard is a skateboard-like board, which simulates the traveling behavior of a snowboard on asphalt. In addition to the pure carving behavior of a skateboard or longboard, the freeboard allows lateral sliding movements and also sudden braking by putting the freeboard into a horizontal position in relation to the slope.
A T-board and a road-surf board are forms of skateboard having two wheels and attempt to imitate the properties of a snowboard. They differ from the traditional skateboard in a similar way to how a roller skate differs from an inline skate. Traveling on only two wheels simulates traveling on the edge in snowboarding. T-boards and road-surf boards allow in this case an angle of inclination of 60 degrees, similar to that of a snowboard, in contrast to an angle of inclination of 25 degrees in the case of a skateboard.
A windboard is a skateboard or longboard to which a windsurfing sail is fastened and allows windsurfers to exercise leisure and training options.
The term road luge (or street luge) designates a gravity-dependent extreme sport, in which a kind of oversized, usually self-constructed skateboard is lain on to travel down paved roads. It is a type of tobogganing, but without snow.
It should be noted that the above kinds of rolling board are to be understood merely as examples and the invention is not restricted to these kinds of rolling board.
The abovementioned carving is a development of the conventional skiing technique, in which turns are made completely on the steel edges, rather than drifting through the curve. Snowboarding made the carving technique popular as a result of the completely different feeling associated with traveling on the edge.
In order to be able to exercise various board sports, for which different kinds of rolling boards are necessary, it is therefore necessary to buy a corresponding number of different rolling boards, this being associated with correspondingly high costs.